


Whiskey

by starryeyedboxes



Category: Septiplier - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 07:18:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4995286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryeyedboxes/pseuds/starryeyedboxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ducking-g--hallatious said: lyric prompt: "and these fingertips will never run through your skin, and those bright blue eyes / can only meet mine across a room / filled with people that are less important than you." (love, love, love by of monsters & men, go listen to it seriously)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whiskey

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wasn't going to keep this, but someone requested I actually do a sequel! So since they did, I decided to hang onto this one.

Mark hated parties. He really did.

He didn’t expect to be brought to one. In fact, Arin told him that they were visiting Dan’s house to play some games. Not once did his best friend mention that Dan was actually housing a party with several different people.

What particularly made it worse (and what was causing Mark to pull at the ends of his hair), was the fact that familiar blue eyes were watching him from across the living room. Whenever Mark would glance at the man staring, he would immediately break eye contact as he chose to observe some of the people playing Super Smash Bros. on the main television instead.

This little exchange happened for a while. It had been at least five months since Mark had seen Jack – their breakup had actually been quite awful. He had spent many weeks locked up in his house because of it. It was Arin who had actually pulled him out and made him start his normal routine again.

Mark was definitely going to go off on Arin later for dragging him to a party, let alone one that his ex-boyfriend was invited to as well.

He pulled out his phone and stared at its screen. To his dismay, he realized that he had only been here for an hour. While Arin had scurried off with Dan somewhere, he knew that they wouldn’t be leaving for a while. He would be lucky if he made it home before sunrise.

When Mark looked back up, he was surprised to see Jack had disappeared from his spot near the staircase. Felix was still standing there, but he was now talking to Marzia with a handsome smile on his face. He looked side to side for his ex-boyfriend, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Deciding it was best that he included himself in at least the games going on, Mark stood up to grab a drink from the kitchen before doing so. He needed something to help him unwind.

As he stepped into the kitchen, he grabbed the bottle of Dr. Pepper on the counter, poured it half-way, then grabbed the bottle of Fireball to mix in. In the middle of stirring it with one of the plastic spoons, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Freezing, he feared who was behind that hand.

“Hey, Mark!”

He let out a sigh of relief at the feminine voice that trailed behind him. Turning around, he met gazes with Arin’s wife, Suzy. With a beautiful smile, she laughed at his visible rigidness.

“Saw Jack here, huh?”

“Remind me to kill your fucking husband,” Mark mumbled, pulling the red cup to his lips. “I wouldn’t have come if I had known. I don’t even know where he is. He left his phone in the car, too.”

“I’d offer you a ride home, but I came with Holly and I don’t know where she is at all,” she meekly offered. “Sorry, Mark.”

“No, don’t worry. I’ll just try to enjoy myself.”

“Well, I see you’ve already begun,” Suzy commented, pointing a long finger at the red cup in his hand. He simply chuckled in response. “Well, I’m going to go look for Ross. He’s here somewhere. Want to come with me?”

“It’s okay. I think I’m going to go play some video games with the other guys or see what Felix is up to.”

“Okay, catch you later, Mark! I’ll come looking for you if I find Arin!”

“Much appreciated.”

And they left their separate ways. As Mark came through the living room entrance, he walked towards the crowd of guys in front of the television while cheering and yelling filled the room. He recognized Ken, Matt, and of course Bob and Wade, but he was happy to realize Jack wasn’t amongst the crowd as well.

An hour or so into it, Mark was surprised to find that he was actually having a lot of fun. They all decided on loser gets replaced with someone else in the crowd while the winner gets to down a shot of whiskey and continue playing the next round. Mark was absolutely destroying all those he played against, but that in essence meant he was going through the whiskey fairly quickly.

He had to throw in the towel when he felt himself grow heavier and heavier with each shot. He was past seven eight shots by the time he stumbled back into the kitchen to find some water to help calm his drunken body.

When he opened Dan’s refrigerator to grab a bottle of water, an Irish voice called from behind him.

“Hey.”

As Mark looked over his shoulder, he saw Jack, a stoic expression on his face. A few moments passed, but he soon realized he wasn’t in any state right now to handle this situation properly. He wasn’t even sure if he could have handled it sober.

“What do you want, McLoughlin?”

“Well, I saw you here. Just wanted to stop by and say hello.”

“Hello,” he responded curtly before shutting the refrigerator door.

Mark walk past his ex-boyfriend but had to hold onto the counter as he almost stumbled forward into the ground. The world spun at his feet, his vision slightly blurring as he tried to steady himself.

“Whoa!” An arm quickly went around his waist, easily picking him back up from his slump. “Careful.”

Swatting Jack away, Mark spun around, causing his head to swirl once again. He held onto the counter regardless, determined not to be a drunken mess in front of him.

“I don’t need your help.”

“You really want to be an ass right now? I tried helping you when you almost face-planted into the fuckin’ floor, Mark.”

“Then let me fall. I don’t need your help. I don’t need you doing anything for me. I don’t need you.”

Jack visibly froze, his eyes widening slightly at Mark’s pure hostility towards him. Mark didn’t care, though. He felt sick and his eyes stung at the memories he still held of his ex-boyfriend, ones that were filled with warm laughter and endless nights, but he held his ground. He wouldn’t let Jack take what was left of him. What little there was.

Not again.

“Goodbye, Jack.”

But as Mark started towards the kitchen’s exit back into the living room, in an instant, he felt the ground give way and the walls shift, and soon enough, he was staring at the ceiling from the ground, a sharp pain running through his shoulder.

He heard shuffling before Jack’s face appeared in front of his vision.

“Mark, are you okay? Did you hit your head?”

“Not hard,” he responded, rubbing the back of his head anyway. “What happened?”

“You fell, you idiot,” Jack hissed. “I told you to be careful.”

“How’d I fall?”

An arm went around his shoulders as he was lifted up into a sitting position. Mark’s head was pounding with a headache now, and all he could focus on was the nausea pooling in his stomach. God, he hoped he wouldn’t have to vomit any time soon.

“You’re drunk, you really need to question how you fell?”

“I’m tired,” Mark mumbled, his voice barely above a croak. “I feel sick.”

“You drank too much.”

He wasn’t particularly sure what happened next, but he wasn’t on the ground anymore. In fact, he was pretty sure Jack was carrying him through the living room and up the stairs. Granted it was very slowly, but he would guess that it was probably because he was bigger than Jack was and it took quite the effort to pull him up in his arms.

It was fuzzy, but Mark was able to make out being placed on his side on a bed, and having a trashcan kicked in front of his part of the bed.

“Who’d you come here with?” Jack questioned quietly as he made sure the trashcan was in a good position. “You didn’t drive here did you?”

“I think I came with Arin,” Mark mumbled, burying his face into the pillow as he closed his eyes. “I can’t find him. His phone’s in the car.”

“I’ll go find him, okay? I’ll be back – well, Arin will be back.”

When the door creaked open, signaling Jack’s departure, Mark found himself calling out.

“Wait, Jack.”

“What?”

“Can… you come stay with me for a little while?”

There was a moment of silence, but the door creaked again before he heard it shut. Mark quickly wondered if Jack had walked out despite his plea, but when he felt the bed shift on the other side, he rolled over and saw he had actually listened.

“Why do you want me here right now?” Jack uncomfortably laid himself down next to him, but his expression was gentle. “Five minutes ago you were yelling at me to leave.”

“Because I don’t want to be alone when I hit my head.” Mark mumbled as he curled up next to his ex-boyfriend, his head burying underneath the crook of Jack’s neck. “And I don’t feel good. I hate feeling nauseous.”

“You better not throw up on me, Fischbach.”

“I got a trashcan.”

Strong arms went around Mark as he sighed, his head still very much swirling. But he smiled anyway. There was no better feeling than being enveloped in such familiar warmth and Mark noted that Jack even smelled the exact same as he remembered. It even brought tears to his eyes, but of course, he hid it as he felt Jack’s breathing slow, his chest not moving as quickly as before. It wasn’t until he heard recognizable snoring that he felt himself drift off as well, his dreams filled with loving recollections of simpler times where his smile was genuine and Jack’s wonderful laughter wasn’t forced yet.

When he was shaken awake, he angrily grumbled in response of his dreams being interrupted.

“Mark, wake up.”

He recognized it as Arin’s voice.

“Arin?” He sat up, but immediately reached for the trashcan at the side of the bed and hurled into it, his body heaving up its contents.

“Aw, dude are you okay?” His friend groaned. “I didn’t mean to just ditch you like that.”

“It’s fine,” he mumbled after pulling himself back up.

It quickly dawned on him where he was and he quickly looked beside him expecting to see Jack still sleeping there. But the bed was empty.

“Where’s Jack?”

“Why are you looking for Jack?” Arin questioned, his eyebrow raised. “He just left. He came and found me saying that he found you sleeping up here. Said he wanted to crash here but when he saw that you were taking the only spare bed, he decided to go home instead.”

Mark looked up at the Grump and wiped his eyes, realizing his glasses weren’t on his face anymore. When he looked at the nightstand, he saw them resting on top.

“Oh, I guess. What time is it?”

“It’s six in the morning, man. Wanna head back now or do you want me to leave you here at Dan’s?”

“I’ll crash at your and Suzy’s place if that’s fine,” he muttered. “I don’t feel like going home.”

“You sure you don’t want me to leave you here, then? Dan won’t mind, you know that.”

As Mark stared at the now empty space on the bed beside him, he let out a long sigh. “I’m sure. I’m ready to go. I don’t really feel like sleeping here anymore.”

“Well, take that trash can with you,” Arin laughed as he held the door open so his friend could walk through. “I don’t want my car filled with your vomit.”

Mark simply chuckled but he grabbed the trash can anyway and walked out into the hallway. He watched the door shut behind Arin, the unkempt bed disappearing from his sight.

As they descended the stairs and over most of the littered trash on the ground, his head was filled with thoughts of last night. With one free hand, he pulled his shirt up to his nose and his eyes immediately glossed over as the scent of Jack filled his lungs.

He still smelled like him.

Mark slowly crawled into Arin’s passenger’s seat and as they pulled out of the driveway, he recognized a familiar black truck on the curb. When they passed it, he recognized it was Jack who was sitting in the driver’s seat, his hands wiping away what looked like tears.

Why was Jack crying?

But Mark didn’t get to think much more of it as the view of Dan’s house soon disappeared out of sight.


End file.
